Families grieve after attack on school

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DAMASCUS, Syria Families in a central neighborhood of the capital wept quietly Tuesday as they retrieved the bodies of four children and their bus driver killed in a mortar attack on their school in a predominantly Christian area a day earlier.

The strike was the latest rebel reprisal to hit Damascus as government troops press a weekslong advance into opposition-held suburbs, often relying on indiscriminant artillery fire themselves. Such mortar attacks by rebels seeking to overthrow President Bashar Assad have been on the rise.

“Those children were angels,” said Marwan Qabalan, a family friend, picking up the body of 9-year-old Vaniciya Mekho from the morgue. He said her parents couldn't bear to see her, still dressed in a school uniform and covered in blood.

Rebel mortar fire has hit shops, churches, homes and embassies this year, killing dozens of civilians. But Monday's shelling of the Risaleh school shocked residents in particular because the casualties were children.

A fifth pupil died Tuesday, raising the number of children killed to five. Four other children and two supervisors were wounded in the strike, and another mortar attack on nearby John of Damascus school wounded 11.

Also Tuesday, Kurds announced a transitional autonomous administration to run day-to-day affairs in regions they dominate in Syria's northeast. Nawaf Khalil, a spokesman for the Kurdish Democratic Union Party, or PYD, said the announcement was made in the city of Qamishli.

Overstretched from fighting rebels across most of the country, Syrian troops withdrew from Kurdish areas last year, leaving a security void. Since then, Kurdish militiamen led by the PYD, seen by mainstream rebels and some other Kurdish groups as being pro-government, have been fighting to purge their areas of Islamic extremists and al-Qaida affiliated militants.

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